politics, people having strange ideas about
Apparently there's a whole movement of people who think that if you're a US citizen and you just say you don't want to be subject to US law, then you're not
where on *earth* would people get that idea?
-F
re: politics, people having strange ideas about
@Felthry Sovereign citizens are freaking wild.
politics, people having strange ideas about
people who cannot distinguish the behavior of actual lawyers from the behavior of SovCit advocates. People who don't cross a certain fairly high bar of political literacy, judicial literacy, and "legalese" literacy have no grounds to distinguish "actual law" from "legal-sounding gibberish". Combine it with distrust for US governmental authority and you get, well, that.
re: politics, people having strange ideas about
@kistaro what's sovcit mean?
-F
re: politics, people having strange ideas about
"Sovreign Citizen", the most common USA form of this specific pathology.
politics, people having strange ideas about
the best analysis and dissection of this and its entire history is from a Canadian court case where someone tried to use SovCit defenses to a divorce proceeding - including (gibberish) references to American law. The judge delivered a 188-page decision that is worth reading in its entirety if you're fascinated by this kind of thing: https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html
(PDF link in the top right corner of the page is probably the most legible version)
re: politics, people having strange ideas about
@kistaro why would someone ever think referencing US law in a Canadian court would do anything to help their case?
-F
re: politics, people having strange ideas about
There are two main branches:
1. people who explicitly refuse all governments they regard as wrought by humans and accept only religious law
2. people who believe that the founding documents of their nation have more judicial weight than literally everything the nation has done ever since, and their specific interpretation of those is the final say in what is "real law", which is roughly concordant with "the parts of the law they like, and things they wish were law"
re: politics, people having strange ideas about
The long and short is that SovCits don't believe that US laws apply to them, nor do they think other countries laws should.
Only the laws that they claim, which are a bunch of out-of-context legal double-speak that all just basically says that they want to live without any repercussions, and because they say so.
re: politics, people having strange ideas about
@JulieSqveakaroo@dragon.style @Felthry@awoo.space @kistaro@dragon.style ah yes, the folks responsible for the Boozy Barrister becoming the Boozy Badger (SovCit stuff & a furry convention crossed paths and someone tapped him to explain what the heck was up and suddenly a lawyer blogger finds himself with a fursona, shrugs, and says, "a badger? You know, I do often feel badgerish now you bring it up.)
politics, people having strange ideas about
@Felthry
I assume you're talking about "Sovereign Citizens"?
From what I understand it basically boils down to people trying to come up with convoluted interpretations of the constitution and various other legal Things such that they can justify not paying taxes/ignoring law enforcement.